A Bit of Color

The Virginia creeper has turned its godawful ratty brown now and it's what we see from the patio and from inside the house. It goes suddenly and early every year, but this year's hot dry summer stressed it with powdery mildew all over. I'll ignore it. I have to.

The crabapple did not color this fall, it's just dropping its leaves. There are no red crabs at all. It flowered only sparsely, just a few blooms this spring, but they did not fruit.

The serviceberry, however, is starting to color up nicely and even has a delicate glow to its changing leaves. A nice sight right out the kitchen door.

I'm pleased with how it transplanted last winter. It seems to be doing well and I can see a day in the far future when it will shade the kitchen door from the bright morning sun in summer and we won't have to keep the blinds shut tight in the mornings.

The cottonwood and the aspens aren't really turning yellow very much. But the redbud is. It's starting to turn a nice lemon yellow.

It tilts out away from the garage. Redbuds naturally lean out from the forest's edge and look graceful in the transition from shaded woods to open sunlight, but as a single specimen in a tight yard, it looks unbalanced.

But I am happy it is finally healthy enough and growing, with a nice leader after all these years.

Not much else looks very colorful this fall. The Japanese maple is starting to turn a brownish red, it's early yet. It typically colors up spectacular in November. 

We got one night in the 20s recently and the maple's leaves look brown at the edges. So there may not be much red this year.

The plumbagos are a nice red though.

And this tiny Coral Reef sedum, tucked in among the moss rocks in the circle garden is a sweet little pop of red to brighten things at ground level.

I'd like to get a few more of this small spreader to add along the rock border. It's sedum tetractinum, called Chinese sedum.

(Note: Sooner Plant Farm has it.)

 

Little Surprises

Beautiful cool fall morning. I found a few surprises in the garden today.

The Venosa violacae clematis that had died all the way back to the ground this summer has regenerated. There is new fresh growth and even a stem arching out with more leaf buds. I had cut the dried stems all the way back and planned to take out the rootball and replace this vine with a Jackamnii clematis.

But here it is, regrowing in October.

The Lacey Blue dwarf Russian sages gave me a pleasant surprise -- the new one gallon plant from Monrovia came and it is full and thick and is now planted in the new garden by the fence. It's lovely. 

And then I discovered that the 4 inch pot of Lacey Blue I got from High Country Gardens that came with all its foliage torn off has survived. I wrote it off for a loss (and got a refund), but forgot about it for 10 days and left the little pot on the potting bench, neglected and unwatered. Today I saw tiny new leaves.

If I can get it to survive and grow I'll find a spot for it next spring. The one I have now next to the urn is nice. The flowers are going by and fading, but it still peeks out from around the rim of the pot. Next year I need to trim it back to keep it from splaying too much.

Another surprise is that the Jupiter's Beard is reblooming now in mid October. It's shaggy looking but eye catching viewed from the patio. 

It reseeds with vigor (the plant itself is short lived) and I am finding tons of little seedlings popping up under it and all around that section of the garden.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the new Black Adder agastache I got from High Country Gardens has recovered. 

I repotted it in a bigger container but it struggled and looked half dead for a while. It's doing well now. The older one in the ground by the birdbath died back but has basal growth showing.

I like my vision for the new strip under the fence. The Virginia creeper vine is a brown mess already and the plants need to bulk up and the agastache needs to recover next year but the whole look has promise. 

The lambsear at the left looks particularly good since it rained.

You can see how the wind patterns tilt the new thin plants over, especially the tall Appar Blue flax. The fence and deck and layout of our narrow garden channel the breezes one way apparently.

It's mid October, with Halloween coming up now. But an odd one with such a stressful summer and then so much rain in September. But there is some color starting and leaves are thinning out. 

I'm surprised I actually like the view toward the back fence now without the honeysuckle vine there. 

A nice time of year.

   🍂

Mock Orange

For five years I have looked out the dining room window and thought - boy, when the mock orange attains its mature size it will be too big here. I keep imaging the 5 foot tall and wide shrub in that spot near the rain barrel and I suspected it would be too much.

After five years this is what I have:

Mine after 5 years, and  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . what it should look like in bloom

Mine has never bloomed. It dies back to the ground each winter and then regrows from the roots. Because mock orange blooms on old wood and none of the woody stem structure is retained, I don't get any flowers. What does grow each season is healthy foliage, but the new stems are just slender whips.

It is a 'Cheyenne' philadelphus that is native, tough as nails, easy to grow and needs no care. Mine is not able to compete with the juniper and cottonwood roots apparently, or it's in too much shade much of the day or both.

I need to move it. And replace it. There is irrigation there under the dining room window. Despite being on the east side, the site is in deep morning shade from the cottonwood, then sun later. 

I've had good results so far with redtwig dogwoods in shade competing under trees, so I ended up putting another one there. 

No flowering to speak of, no fragrance, but some fall color to complement the Japanese maple and some visual weight for the spot. Red stems will echo the rain barrel in winter. The barrel overflows at times and the redtwig dogwood tolerates flooding.

And the mock orange? I took it out, did not replant it anywhere. It's gone.

Missing Russian Sage

The sun has been out for two days now, following weeks of rain and cool temperatures. Skies are bluebird blue and the days are lovely. Everything is still so wet. 

My High Country Garden order came and I planted it up.

What a difference to dig in soil that was damp all the way down. Not soggy, but very moist and soft. Usually I have to dig a shallow hole in either powder or cement!

I planted two Engelmann's daisies close together in the circle garden, two scarlet monardellas in the green trough, a Black Adder agastache in a pot for winter (final location to be determined next spring), and a dwarf Lacey Blue Russian sage in the circle garden by the Mexican sage.

But alas, only one of the Lacey Blue Russian sages was alive, the second one did not survive shipping. They don't have a replacement so I'll get a refund.

It was supposed to go in the strip by the fence. That new area, created last winter, is still missing plants.

The missing:

The Black Adder agastache died down to the ground in the high heat and drought of this past summer, although I watered it a lot. The roots live, I can see basal growth at soil level. I'll see if it comes back in spring. I do have the second one I just got.

🪏 If it doesn't come back and if I decide to leave the new Black Adder in a container for my prairie pot garden instead, maybe plant out the yellow tickseed there?

The Russian sage was supposed to go next to the Windwalker Red salvia (which is doing well). I ended up getting a replacement from Monrovia -- a big one gallon this time.

🪏 It won't arrive until mid October. Too late to plant?

We Need an Ark

A full 3 inches of rain over the last two nights and two days.

It is so rare to see that much all at once in the rain gauge and it has followed days and days of rain.

The kitchen floor flooded by the door one night, even with the baffle outside in front of it. Not too bad, but it must have been coming down fast at times.

Monsoon season never arrived this summer. At all. Now in the last half of September the rainy remnants of Pacific hurricanes have drenched us.

My plants look great but it's starting to be too much. After all their summer stress, I worry that now they may be drowning.

 

And Then There Was More

So much rain. After so little all summer. 

It rained again yesterday, all day. It was a gentle soaking rain. When I got up this morning there was just over an inch in the rain gauge.

There was no flooding thankfully, and our kitchen floor remained dry. All the plants are beyond soaked, everything looks refreshed and full.

Three and a half inches in the last 10 days, and all of it delivered in long slow rainy spells, not sudden storm drenches.

That's a lot for us,

Super El Nino

They say this is now the start of the Super El Nino, bringing late season rain and winter snow to the southwest.

After one of  the driest years on record in northern New Mexico, we've had two and a half inches over the past five nights, and all steady soakers.

My Bluestone plants arrived a few days ago full and healthy and very good sized. Today the sun came out and I could plant them.

In spots where I dug, though, the mulch and soil were nice and moist several inches down but still bone dry below that.

I planted:

🌱 Two Spanish Flare hellebores, one next to the rain barrel and the other to add to the two already in the potting bench curve.

🌱 Two Caradonna salvias in different sites in the circle garden. I planted them very close to other things, tucking them in -- I'm so tired of plants shrinking away from anything nearby and looking isolated and clumpy. Mine will never be this full or tightly formed or flowery.

🌱 An Arctic Fire redtwig dogwood in the dining room window garden, in the irrigated spot where the disappointing Cheyenne mock orange was. I took that out.

🌱 Two Blue Ice amsonias, one to finish off the arc around the circle garden and one in the front of the potting bench curve by itself, between two lambsears. There was a pineleaf penstemon there, but it got woody and bare looking and I took that out.

Also, on a whim today I decided to divide the yellow tickseed that I now have in the white bowl and put one division in the ground in the circle garden. We'll see what becomes of that. It did so well in a container, blooming all summer. In the ground I may lose it.

I hope this cool sunny weather and all the rain gives these new plants a good start. I still have more coming from High Country Gardens next week.

Existing plants in the garden all look refreshed. 

Lambsears had looked okay through the unrelenting sun and hot afternoons of summer with barely a quarter inch of rain for weeks, remaining blue and fuzzy-leaved, but suddenly they are standing up and fuller now. Everything is.

I've turned the irrigation system off for now.

An update, late afternoon: a storm rolled through, soaking us once again, this time a quarter inch.

Day after day of measurable rain, cool wet soil, then sunshiny breaks and then more rain. 

New plants in the ground. Wow. 

Rain in the Rain Gauge

It rained steadily a few nights ago and when the rain event was over there was an inch of rain in the gauge. 

As always everything looks completely refreshed in a way that all my hand watering and irrigation never achieves.

Then a day later it rained again, measuring another half inch. Good long soakers, both times.

It was a very dry spring, followed by a very dry summer. Just a quarter or third of an inch at a time, each delivered about four weeks apart, totaling no more than two inches total all spring and into mid September.

Those barely-there wettings and my hose watering created mildewed mulch but left the soil underneath hardly damp. The garden struggled and looked stressed.

And every afternoon all summer long has been in the high 80s, not alarmingly hot, but too uncomfortable to sit outside, and the heat lingered into evening. Mornings were usually nice, but we spent the entire summer inside after noontime in the roaring A/C.

So even though I had Greg switch the cushioned teak chairs out for our metal patio table and chair set back on July 25, we never once got to enjoy an evening out there. Til now. It was cool and fresh in between soakings and pleasant for wine on the patio.

This sudden change and long overdue rain has been nice.

More rain is forecast in the coming days . . .